


Pocula Regia

by gawain_in_green



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Archivist!Jon, Compulsion, Fire, Gen, POV Outsider, a lot of italians here, just a bunch of italians, post-Watcher's Crown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 02:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20574605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gawain_in_green/pseuds/gawain_in_green
Summary: At the end of the world, Jon has a snack.





	Pocula Regia

**Author's Note:**

> please everyone congratulate me on finally posting something other than lymond chronicles  
....that said, the title is from lymond chronicles: "PRAELIA MNEMOSYNE, NON POCULA REGIA CURET, or _Count only the battles and not the cups the king drinks._" --_Checkmate_, Dorothy Dunnett  
this is really dark i'm sorry  
shout-out to InhumanByte for beta reading!

The first Marcello de Luca hears of the end of the world is this:

“Hello,” says Giusi, settling shakily into their seat, “thank you for coming.”

Marcello nods amiably. It’s been a long time since he saw Giusi-- at least not since he got his green card, and perhaps not since Giusi moved here as well. He forgets. He spends a lot of time trying to forget Casale ‘e Principe, and the people he left there. Giusi is one of the better ones to have followed him to England. “It’s a delight to see you,” he says. It feels odd to be talking to Giusi in English, but neither of them makes a move to switch to Italian. 

“Yes, yes,” Giusi says, “you too. I have a problem.”

Marcello leans closer and raises an eyebrow at them. “A home kind of problem?” he asks. 

“No.” Giusi smiles nervously at the waitress as she passes by. She makes no move to stop and take their order. “A worse kind.”

“That’s not good.”

“I don’t know-- I don’t know how to describe it. It is like a… a thing that is hunting me. I see it everywhere I go.”

“And you tell me this why?”

Giusi looks at him imploringly, and for the first time Marcello takes note of how skinny they are, how starkly their eyes stand out from the dark circles underneath. “At Casale, people used to say, you have a problem, go to Officer de Luca. Marcello de Luca can solve your problem.”

“Marcello de Luca solved one too many problems for some people’s liking.”

Giusi shrugs. “Well, what can you do? The pizzo is the pizzo. That was your fault.”

“You came to the United Kingdom too,” points out Marcello.

“It is different,” says Giusi, waving a hand. “I come to the UK for non-gendered pronouns. You come to the UK for dodging what everyone else knows they must do.”

It feels rank for Giusi to describe Marcello’s activism in this manner, but he simply smiles thinly and opens his hands, palms up, to them. “Tell me. How can I help you solve your problem?”

Giusi’s quiet for a long moment, staring blankly at the table for so long that Marcello is unclear if they heard him. “I need to kill it,” they say finally. Then they raise their eyes, and Marcello starts back. There’s something _ else _in the pale brown irises than just Giusi. “I need to escape it. Please.”

“Giusi,” says Marcello, worry beginning to fester in his gut, “what is hunting you?”

“It-- he--” Giusi waves a hand. “It looks like a man. I see it everywhere-- _ everywhere _I go. It watches me when I sleep. I am sure it will be here soon.”

“What? What does it do?”

“I told you, it-- _ watches me _. It sees everything about me. I know this.” Giusi’s voice is rising, and a woman at the next table glances over at them disapprovingly. The panic is setting in. 

“Giusi, I need you to take a deep breath,” says Marcello, reaching a placating hand over the table and placing it on theirs. “Breathe. I am here now, it will be alright. _ Vai. _Tell me from the beginning.”

But their eyes are not watching Marcello-- instead they are fixed at a point somewhere over Marcello’s shoulder, where the door of the cafe is. “It is too late,” whispers Giusi, “he is here. Look, de Luca.”

Marcello turns just as a man enters the cafe. He looks somewhere near Marcello’s age-- forty, or maybe a few years younger, with a scarred face and an unremarkable sweater vest. His eyes are dark and fixed directly on the shaking young person directly across from Marcello.

All at once, the hubbub of the cafe at noon halts, and every single person in the room turns their head mechanically to stare at Giusi, pale and shivering in their seat. Trying to move his gaze away from their face, Marcello realizes he too is stuck solid, eyes wide and unblinking. 

“Giusi Rosario Ferrara,” the man at the door murmurs. “Why have you been running?” 

The words start in Giusi’s throat and seem to force themselves out without any consent from their speaker: “Because I am terrified of what you will do.”

The man breathes in deeply, as though he was savouring a fine wine, and then steps closer. Smiling slightly, he leans down to look Giusi in the face. “What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to see me,” coughs out Giusi, the whites of their eyes showing. “And you’re going to show everyone here.”

“What do you have to hide?”

“I--” 

Before Giusi can finish their sentence, there’s a loud _ thwock _, like the sound of a golf club hitting someone very firmly on the skull, and the strange man crumples forward at Giusi’s feet. The spell he cast on the cafe breaks. Behind the man stand two people: a bedraggled-looking older man with a wild beard, and a woman with a buzzcut (and a golf club). 

“He’ll be fine in a moment,” says the woman. “For now-- run.”

So Marcello does. He grabs Giusi by the hand and, as everyone else pours screaming from the cafe, he drags them towards the back. He finds the emergency exit, his heart beating dangerously fast, and forces them through it as somewhere behind he hears a voice, impossibly loud, saying a name he does not know. 

“JULIA MONTAUK,” the voice gravels out. “I thought I told you to keep well enough alone.”

And then they’re out in the street, and running. “What--” yells Marcello, already somewhat breathless. Years of cigarettes have left him forever out of shape, despite the fact that he’s long since quit. “What the hell is that man?”

“I don’t know, but it has been following me all day!”

“Where did you see it first?”

“My girlfriend and I bumped into it on the street.”

“Girlfriend?”

“You never met Nunzia? She left Casale with me after-- after her father lost his livelihood.”

Even as they run through the smog-filled, dirty back streets of London, Marcello finds himself smiling slightly. “Good for you two. I will get you back to her, I promise.”

Giusi looks somewhat sick, but before they can respond, the two of them emerge into a small park, cold and dismal on the foggy April day. Trees loom overhead, heavy with rainwater, and an old brick chapel stands boarded up and abandoned. No one is around, so Marcello slows to a relieved halt. 

“Do you think we are safe?” asks Giusi. 

Marcello looks around the small park. Something feels wrong. 

“Giusi…” he begins, scanning the trees and the small brick building. “Why is there a yellow door on the side of that chapel?”

They look at the door. The door looks back at them. They look at each other. 

“God is lending us a helping hand?” suggests Giusi, without much hope. 

Behind the door, someone laughs. “D̷͈̋ȉ̷͖̕d̷̯̥͆̈́ ̵̛̙͆ȳ̶̩̠̚o̸͉͂u̴̬͐ ̶̜̦̇̑h̵̥̼̉e̷̦̗͒̋ā̷͕̃r̸̡̈́̕ ̶̰͖̂͠t̴͓̞́̓ḥ̶̍̀a̵̳̚t̴̜̋, ̷͚̤̌**J̵̢͘͝o̶͊ͅn̷͎͕͂̍**?̸̢͌̆” says a voice like barbed wire. “Ġ̷̗̽̄̓̎ö̷̧͕̰̜͌̍͠d̴̙̃ ̶̡͎̟̪͙̆̓ï̶̟̺͔̒͌ŝ̵͙͎͘ ̴͖͌͘h̶̟̩̅e̴̤̘̒r̷̢̻̞̮̽̓͌̃̚e̸̦̠̰̋͛ ̶͉̲̬͎̤̎͐͛t̷͍͇̄̔̉̾o̸̤͑̀̆ ̴͔͐̍̚h̵̪͉̤͉̓̽̎͠ȩ̷̱̼̟̞͛͐͛̿ĺ̷̦p̶̜̥̽͗̈́͘.̶̜̑”

They spin around, ready to run back where they came from, and there is the woman. She is tall, or maybe she is short, with blonde hair, or maybe black. It flickers from one to the other every second. 

“Yes, thank you, Helen,” says the man named Jon, stepping out of the bright yellow door. His eyes are darker than they were in the cafe, darker than any eyes should be. “You can stop trying to run,” he remarks to Giusi and Marcello; politely, as though he were explaining that a door is push rather than pull. 

“What are you?” whispers Marcello.

“I̴'̸m̴ ̵a̸ ̴f̴r̴i̵e̷n̶d!” says Helen cheerfully. “O̸r̵ ** _̶pe̶rh̵a̸p̴s̴ _ ** y̴o̴u̵ m̸i̵g̴h̵t̵ c̸a̷l̵l̴ m̶e̴ a̵ ** _c̸h̷e̴f̶_ **.”

“_ Thank you _, Helen,” says Jon with more emphasis. “I’m the Archivist, Marcello de Luca. Officer de Luca-- no, not an officer anymore. You lost that.” He frowns, in a cunning semblance of pity, or possibly something real slipping through the cracks. “I’m sorry. Your story is sad.”

At the corner of his vision, Marcello is aware of figures leaching into the park. He risks a glance to the side. They’re all normal people, lined up like a grim audience to particularly horrific street theatre. And they’re all staring straight at Giusi. 

“...Nunzia?” comes a broken voice from beside him. 

And there she is, Marcello presumes. She looks like a nice enough young woman. 

“You wanted to know, Annunziata,” says Jon softly. “I know how much you wanted to know what they were hiding.”

Tears are streaming down Nunzia’s face as she stands in the park facing Giusi, a spectral circle of bystanders ringing them. And Jon, watching them both with a look of utmost peace on his face. 

“Please,” whispers Nunzia, “please don’t tell me. I don’t want to find out anymore. Please.”

“Tell her,” commands Jon, “what did you do, Giusi?”

And so Giusi starts talking: elegantly, beautifully, pouring out their life story in front of transfixed strangers and the love of their life. The centrepiece of the story is the fire, that terrible fire which destroyed Nunzia’s family business. The fire that Giusi, miserably drunk, accidentally set, and then covered up. And not one person can stop listening. 

Throughout it all, Marcello watches Jon. He cannot bear to look at the broken couple in front of him, and so he stares at the monster instead. Jon stands, his head slightly tilted, drinking in the fear in Giusi’s eyes as though it were a sacramental draught. And then, when Giusi finally, finally stops talking, stops damning themself-- he starts back, something very close to guilt crossing his face. “Thank you,” he breathes. Then he turns and walks back through the door, Helen following him. As she pulls the strange yellow door closed, she throws a lazy salute to the assembled, tear-stained crowd. 

The people leave. What else is there to do? Marcello leaves Giusi and Nunzia crying in each other’s arms, each searching for how to forgive. 

He waits a day. Something feels different. The police won’t talk to him, but refer him to something called the Magnus Institute, to which he promptly finds his way in the early evening. As the sun is setting, he steps through the old double doors, and he’s barely inside before a stern-looking hijabi woman takes him by the arm and leads him down the stairs and into a questioning room. 

“Now,” she says, smiling slightly and leaning forward, her eyes wide and hungry. “Tell me _ everything.” _


End file.
